Ang Lee(I)
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Born in 1954 in Pingtung, Taiwan, Ang Lee has become one of today's
greatest contemporary filmmakers. Ang graduated from the National
Taiwan College of Arts in 1975 and then came to the U.S. to receive a
B.F.A. Degree in Theatre/Theater Direction at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Masters Degree in Film Production
at New York University. At NYU, he served as Assistant Director on
Spike Lee's student film,
Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983).
After Lee wrote a couple of screenplays, he eventually appeared on the
film scene with Tui shou (1991), a dramatic-comedy reflecting on generational conflicts
and cultural adaptation, centering on the metaphor of the grandfather's
Tai-Chi technique of "Pushing Hands".
Xi yan (1993) (aka The Wedding Banquet)
was Lee's next film, an exploration of cultural and generational
conflicts through a homosexual Taiwanese man who feigns a marriage in
order to satisfy the traditional demands of his Taiwanese parents. It
garnered Golden Globe and Oscar nominations, and won a Golden Bear at
the Berlin Film Festival. The third movie in his trilogy of
Taiwanese-Culture/Generation films, all of them featuring his patriarch
figure Sihung Lung, was
Ẩm Thực Nam Nữ (1994) (aka Eat
Drink Man Woman), which received a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination.
Lee followed this with
Lý Trí Và Tình Cảm (1995),
his first Hollywood-mainstream movie. It acquired a Best Picture Oscar
nomination, and won Best Adapted Screenplay, for the film's
screenwriter and lead actress,
Emma Thompson. Lee was also voted
the year's Best Director by the National Board of Review and the New
York Film Critics Circle. Lee and frequent collaborator
James Schamus next filmed
The Ice Storm (1997), an adaptation
of Rick Moody's novel involving 1970s
New England suburbia. The movie acquired the 1997 Best Screenplay at
Cannes for screenwriter James Schamus,
among other accolades. The Civil War drama
Ride with the Devil (1999)
soon followed and received critical praise, but it was Lee's
Ngọa Hổ Tàng Long (2000) (aka
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) that is considered one of his greatest
works, a sprawling period film and martial-arts epic that dealt with
love, loyalty and loss. It swept the Oscar nominations, eventually
winning Best Foreign Language Film, as well as Best Director at the
Golden Globes, and became the highest grossing foreign-language film
ever released in America. Lee then filmed the comic-book adaptation,
Người Khổng Lồ Xanh (2003) - an elegantly and skillfully
made film with nice action scenes. Lee has also shot a short film -
Chosen (2001) (aka Hire, The Chosen) - and
most recently won the 2005 Best Director Academy Award for
Chuyện Tình Sau Núi (2005), a
film based on a short story by
Annie Proulx. In 2012 Lee directed Life of
Pi which earned 11 Academy Award nominations and went on to win the
Academy Award for Best Director. In 2013 Ang Lee was selected as a
member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
